Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments

They found out. It’s not working . They won’t listen. It’s all over. Now what ?

Whether the problem is debt, infidelity, indiscretion, or merely an embarrassing email sent to the wrong reader, we have all found ourselves in bad situations of our own making. And whether that puts you in a delicate position or a full-blown crisis, it can sometimes feel as if there is no way out. Enter Judy Smith. America’s number one crisis management expert, Judy Smith is on speed dial for some of the highest-profile celebrities, politicians, and corporations in the world. But though her business is helping her clients recover from widely publicized personal and professional setbacks, her expertise is applicable to us all. In Good Self, Bad Self, Smith shares her methods, gleaned from years of professional experience, for smoothing over a bad situation while providing the tools to prevent similar incidents from ever happening again.

The way to get through a personal or professional rough spot is by understanding the traits that can lead to our wildest successes and most painful failures. Smith has learned to identify high-risk situations that often lead to marital, financial, professional, or personal imprudence; her ability to anticipate potential personal disasters has allowed her to coach people prior to, as well as in the wake of, crisis.

She has identified seven traits that are often found at the root of a crisis. These traits can be positive and extremely useful but can cause problems when they fall out of balance. Drawing on more than twenty years of professional experience, Smith explains how to prevent these characteristics from interfering with your life. They are:

· Ego

· Denial

· Fear

· Ambition

· Accommodation

· Patience

· Indulgence

Smith uses examples from high-profile cases to illustrate how celebrities, businesses, and individuals have become victims of their own bad behavior when they let one of these traits fall out of balance. Exploring the underlying factors of some very public and often unpleasant scandals, Smith shows how different situations could have been prevented by recalibrating one (or more) of those seven vital characteristics. As she shares her method of repairing the damage that these situations can cause, Smith also explains what we can all be doing in our own lives to prevent a crisis from getting started. Nobody’s perfect, and the same character traits that bring us success can lead to our downfall. It is the way each of us deals with personal character flaws that dictates whether we’re going to succeed or fail. In Good Self, Bad Self, Judy Smith distills years of experience to share the tools we all need to face our mistakes and ultimately overcome them.

Review

"A prominent professional crisis manager who has helped numerous CEOs, politicos, and celebrities cope with their messy lives, Smith believes that the same traits that make people successful in their personal and business lives also get them into trouble. The root causes of most crises often lie in an imbalance in one of seven traits that make up the good self/bad self: ego, denial, fear, ambition, accommodation, patience, and indulgence. To make sure your defining traits work to your advantage, Smith tells readers to employ her mnemonic device, the POWER Approach: Pinpoint which trait is in play; Own that the trait can be good and bad; Work it through and process the role the trait has played in your life; Explore how the trait could play out in the future; and Rein in the trait to achieve balance and control.Â Smith applies her technique to such scenarios as how Johnson & Johnson's successfully handled its tainted-drug crisis and actor Rob Lowe's patience when a sex tape derailed his career. Although her case studies are instructive and much of Smith's advice is sound, albeit familiar, her POWER Approach feels unwieldy and better suited to accompany her services as a crisis manager than as a do-it-yourself program. Agent: Rebecca Gradinger, Fletcher & Co." Publishers Weekly Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Review

“Judy Smith has a profound understanding of human nature, and we’re fortunate that she’s sharing what she knows about the importance of balance in our lives. Good Self, Bad Self isn’t just about getting out of a crisis once you’re in one—it’s a powerful, inspiring book that will help you better understand yourself in every situation.” –Marci Shimoff, New York Times bestselling author of Happy for No Reason and Love for No Reason

Review

"It takes a lifetime to build a good reputation and only one thoughtless act to damage it.

Review

"I have known Judy Smith for many years and she is one of the best crisis managers out there. Good Self, Bad Self is a really important book and offers a unique way of looking at crisis.” -- Larry King

Review

"Judy Smith is the uber media management guru of the 21st century.

Review

"Judy Smith and her team are a reference encyclopedia of knowledge combined with experience that can command, guide, handle, influence, instruct, steer, supervise, and take overall charge of media relations with laser sharp understanding of the complex issues of law, medicine and forensic science." --Dr. Michael Baden, Host of the hit HBO Show Autopsy, and author of Unnatural Death and Dead Reckoning

Review

"Judy Smith has been doling out practical, no nonsense advice for over 20 years to her clients and her friends.

Review

"Judy Smith is a very savvy problem solver, and she's incredibly tough.

Review

"This book is for everyone. Every person, at some point in his or her life, has desperately wished for sound, experienced guidance while trying to navigate the treacherous waters of a personal or professional crisis, be it large or small.

Review

"Clean, well-organized and easy to read...Smith provides a good overview of how to identify and curtail egregious behavior, with just enough celebrity misbehavior to hold the reader’s attention." --Kirkus Reviews

Review

"Crisis guru Judy Smith knows her way out of a catastophe...She brings her PR balm to the masses with Good Self, Bad Self." --More magazine

Review

"A step-by-step approach to identifying your strongest traits - say, ambition or patience or a healthy self-regard - and understanding that these same traits can lead you over the cliff." --The Washington Post

Review

"Judy Smith...can defintiely smooth things over for you. Take her advice and the rest is easy." --Redbook

Review

"Good Self/Bad Self: Transforming your Worst Qualities into your Best Assets has the makings of a best-seller: the celebrity crisis stories are intriguing; the self-improvement strategies are understandable; and most importantly, we all need an expert crisis manager like Judy Smith to help us navigate through these very tough times." --Huffington Post

Review

“It takes a lifetime to build a good reputation and only one thoughtless act to damage it. Good Self, Bad Self is a book you want to read before you need it. Smith provides a blueprint for how to act with authenticity in building, maintaining and, when necessary, repairing your personal brand.” -- Lois P. Frankel, Ph.D., author of Nice Girls Don’t Get the Corner Office and Stop Sabotaging Your Career

Review

"Judy Smith is the uber media management guru of the 21st century. In a 24-7 breaking news world of sound bites, there is no better media veteran to have on speed dial than Judy Smith." -- Linda Kenney Baden, high profile trial attorney, media legal commentator, and co-author of Remains Silent and Skeleton Justice

Review

“Judy Smith has been doling out practical, no nonsense advice for over 20 years to her clients and her friends. Good Self, Bad Self is Judy in book form. Having worked with Judy and one her clients over the course of several months, I got to witness her style and effectiveness first hand. She is detailed, thorough, relentless, frank, and smart. Her course of action while strategic is also very thoughtful, and client-sensitive." --James Brown, Network Broadcaster CBS Sports

Review

“Judy Smith is a very savvy problem solver, and she’s incredibly tough. I’ve seen her handle head-strong clients and also senior producers of major television shows, and in each case, she was in command and relentless in working to implement her strategies. I hope to continue to watch her work her magic from afar, and never to need her services as a client.” --Wayne Pacelle, president & CEO, The Humane Society of the United States

Review

"This book is for everyone. Every person, at some point in his or her life, has desperately wished for sound, experienced guidance while trying to navigate the treacherous waters of a personal or professional crisis, be it large or small. With GOOD SELF, BAD SELF, crisis manager extraordinaire Judy Smith provides clear and concise instructions for how to recognize our individual strengths and weaknesses and how to handle those dire situations. Those of us lucky enough to know Judy Smith wish we could take her and her wit, wisdom and expertise everywhere with us. With GOOD SELF, BAD SELF now we finally can!" --Betsy Beers, Executive Producer, Greys Anatomy, Private Practice, and Scandal

Synopsis

A renowned professional crisis manager to star athletes, politicians, and other high profile screw ups distills her experiences into lessons that will help the rest of us avoid major and minor crises and steer our lives in the right direction, just as Gavin de Becker did for avoidance of violence in his bestseller The Gift of Fear.

Synopsis

One of America’s best-known crisis managers reveals the secrets to overcoming a personal crisis, empowering readers to become stronger people and fully recover from a damaging experience, whether a relationship crisis or business disaster.

As America’s #1 crisis management expert, Judy Smith has been asked to help repair the reputations and overcome the obstacles faced by some of the most well-known companies, celebrities, and politicians of our time. In the process she has discovered that, whether or not one is a household name, there are universal character flaws, trouble spots, and weaknesses that exist in everyone. Over the years, Smith has been able to identify these high-risk traits that often lead to marital, financial, professional, or personal imprudence. These urges exist in all of us, whether it’s the belief that an indiscretion is too minor to detect, a mistake is too difficult to repair, or a deceit is too well hidden to be discovered. But, as Smith shows, we can overcome these negative urges and failings—and even turn them into our strongest assets.

Just as Gavin de Becker’s bestselling book The Gift of Fear teaches how to recognize and survive universal signs of violence, and as Chip and Dan Heath’s bestselling book Switch shows readers how to implement change in their lives, Good Self, Bad Self will teach us how to face and overcome our own denial of impending problems—and how to identify and avoid such situations in the first place. Smith believes that the way each of us deals with personal character flaws is what dictates whether we’re going to be successful or whether we’re going to destroy what we, and those around us, have worked so hard to build. In Good Self, Bad Self, she distills years of experience to share the tools we all need to face our mistakes and ultimately overcome them.

Synopsis

They found out. It's not working . They won't listen. It's all over. Now what ?

Whether the problem is debt, infidelity, indiscretion, or merely an embarrassing email sent to the wrong reader, we have all found ourselves in bad situations of our own making. And whether that puts you in a delicate position or a full-blown crisis, it can sometimes feel as if there is no way out. Enter Judy Smith. America's number one crisis management expert, Judy Smith is on speed dial for some of the highest-profile celebrities, politicians, and corporations in the world. But though her business is helping her clients recover from widely publicized personal and professional setbacks, her expertise is applicable to us all. In Good Self, Bad Self, Smith shares her methods, gleaned from years of professional experience, for smoothing over a bad situation while providing the tools to prevent similar incidents from ever happening again.

The way to get through a personal or professional rough spot is by understanding the traits that can lead to our wildest successes and most painful failures. Smith has learned to identify high-risk situations that often lead to marital, financial, professional, or personal imprudence; her ability to anticipate potential personal disasters has allowed her to coach people prior to, as well as in the wake of, crisis.

She has identified seven traits that are often found at the root of a crisis. These traits can be positive and extremely useful but can cause problems when they fall out of balance. Drawing on more than twenty years of professional experience, Smith explains how to prevent these characteristics from interfering with your life. They are:

· Ego

· Denial

· Fear

· Ambition

· Accommodation

· Patience

· Indulgence

Smith uses examples from high-profile cases to illustrate how celebrities, businesses, and individuals have become victims of their own bad behavior when they let one of these traits fall out of balance. Exploring the underlying factors of some very public and often unpleasant scandals, Smith shows how different situations could have been prevented by recalibrating one (or more) of those seven vital characteristics. As she shares her method of repairing the damage that these situations can cause, Smith also explains what we can all be doing in our own lives to prevent a crisis from getting started. Nobody's perfect, and the same character traits that bring us success can lead to our downfall. It is the way each of us deals with personal character flaws that dictates whether we're going to succeed or fail. In Good Self, Bad Self, Judy Smith distills years of experience to share the tools we all need to face our mistakes and ultimately overcome them.

Synopsis

From the real-life crisis expert who inspired ABC’s Scandal.

Everyone must learn to live with personal missteps. Whether you’ve put yourself in an awkward situation, or you find that you’ve unwittingly created a full-blown crisis, Judy Smith is here to teach you how to look within to diffuse, mitigate, and resolve issues at their root.

Good Self, Bad Self will teach you how to face and overcome potential problems before they send your life spinning out of control. Using the straightforward and incredibly effective POWER model—which incorporates the same strategies Judy uses with her high-profile clients—you can learn to master and expertly handle any sticky situation in your own life. Smith distills years of experience, sharing tools we all need to face our mistakes and overcome them.

About the Author

In a career spanning nearly 25 years, Judy Smith’s unique combination of communication, legal and political skills have served a wide range of clients facing some of the most high profile challenges of our times. Having established herself of as one of the premier crisis management experts in the world, Smith has become the go-to person for corporations, politicians, and celebrities seeking counsel in times of crisis. She has worked on: the Iran Contra investigation, the prosecution of former D.C. Mayor Marion Barry, the Supreme Court confirmation hearings of Justice Clarence Thomas, the impeachment process of President Clinton, the Chandra Levy investigation, as well as the Enron Congressional inquiry. She also serves as a counselor to BellSouth, Union Pacific, Starwood Hotels, Nextel, Federated Department Stores, United Healthcare, Americhoice, Wal-Mart, Radio-One, Waste Management Corporation, Deloitte & Touche and AIG, among other companies.